NASA has just announced an unprecedented mission involving Russia—a crewless Soyuz spacecraft will be launched by Roscosmos on February 23 (U.S. time) to rescue three astronauts stranded on the International Space Station (ISS).
According to NASA, just a few days prior, the Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos) announced that they would be delaying the event until March. However, a new decision has recently been made and announced on the official Telegram channel of Roscosmos.
Russian Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft as seen from the ISS – (Photo: NASA).
NASA stated that it will begin live coverage on its YouTube channel 24 minutes before the launch, which is scheduled for 7:24 PM on February 23 Eastern Time. This corresponds to 3:34 AM on February 24 local time in Russia and 7:24 AM on February 24 in Vietnam.
Additionally, everyone can follow the launch on the website of Space (space.com).
This mission is deemed unprecedented because the Soyuz spacecraft is typically piloted by one main astronaut and can carry two additional crew members. According to Space, the spacecraft in this upcoming launch will be named Soyuz MS-23.
Soyuz MS-23’s primary mission is to rescue three astronauts from NASA (Frank Rubio) and Roscosmos (Sergey Prokopyev and Dimitry Petelin), who are currently working at the ISS and have lost their means of returning to Earth.
These three astronauts arrived at the ISS aboard the Soyuz MS-22, which suffered a coolant leak during an incident in December 2022, forcing the astronauts to cancel a planned spacewalk.
The leak was jointly concluded by NASA and Roscosmos to have been caused by a small piece of space debris. After evaluation, Roscosmos decided that Soyuz MS-22 was not safe enough to return these astronauts to Earth, thus the spacecraft will be returned uncrewed, and another crewless Soyuz will take its place.
According to Roscosmos, the Soyuz MS-23 will take only two days to “dock” with the ISS.
